to mesmerize them nine days after the story broke. >> joining us now, tara mckelvey. and hereinwashington, rajivchandrasekaran, senior correspondent and editor for "the washington post." rajiv, you've covered the war in afghanistan extensively. did you get invited on trips with david petraeus, how well did you know him and how well -- >> i covered him off and on first back in iraq when he was a division commander up in northern iraq and more recently when he was top commander of all u.s. and nato forces in afghanistan and in that later job i did travel around the country with him. he would give remarkable access to journalists. oftentimes it was under very strict ground rules that things were off the record but he did open himself up to press coverage because he thought it was important for the mission to get recognized out there, but also i believe because he also liked to see himself at the center of the coverage. >> so that remarkable access paid dividends for petraeus's image. would you say, would you argue with the notion that many of the jurmts who dealt with him, who know him, hav

fromwashington. brianna,where does the obama administration stand right now with all of this? >> reporter: well, right now we are hearing from the white house who says this won't affect the president's attention to the fiscal cliff situation. that said, we do know that he has had to spend time on this. a limited amount of time in the words of white house press secretary jay carney, but we also know that a lot of staff hours have had to go to dealing with this situation with generals petraeus and allen. yesterday this was the first press conference that we had a chance to ask jay carney about this situation. and he said that the president thinks very highly of general allen, of his service to his country, of the job he's done in afghanistan. and one reporter asked if he, if the president has the full faith, or if general allen, i should say, has the full faith of president obama. and here's what carney said. >> he has faith in general allen, believes he's doing and has done an excellent job at isap. and i would rephrase the pentagon for the process underway with regards to gen

." >>> intriguing new twists and turns in the scandal that'sgrippingwashington, indeedthe nation and much of the world. the affair that led general dividend petraeus to resign as director of the central intelligence agency. we're finding out that at least one lawmaker here in washington may have learned of it ahead of the president and there are questions about the investigation that led to petraeus' stunning downfall. brian todd's been working the story for us and getting new information. brian, tell our viewers what's the latest? >> we found out that the house majority leader, republican congressman eric cantor, may have found out almost two weeks before the president did. this and other time lines we're following on the investigation have led to genuine anger over why the white house and other top congressional leaders weren't told sooner. a time line cnn has put together shows the republican house majority leader may have known about former cia director david petraeus' extramarital affair before the president did. that's according to aides to congressman eric cantor who tell us he fou

coach tom izzo live this hour. "newsroom" starts now. >>> and good morning fromwashingtwashington. i'mcarol costello. thank you so much for joining us. this morning, a shocking new development in the sex scandal that toppled one of the most respect respected men in washington. now it has snared another top general, john allen, commander of all international troops in afghanistan. today the feds are sifting through a mountain of e-mails and messages he traded with a woman named jill kelley. a mind boggling 20,000 to 30,000 pages and agents are searching for anything inappropriate. now here is the common link. that woman, kelley, jill kelley, she's the one who received harassing e-mails supposedly from petraeus' jealous mistress, paula broadwell. petraeus admits to the affair with broadwell and has said that this woman, kelley, is a family friend. we'll take a look at each of these players in a scandal that seems to grow more bizarre by the day. first stop, pentagon and cnn's chris lawrence. so, chris, what specifically are investigators looking for in those messages? morality aside,

reports. chris lawrence of the pentagon and brianna keeler inourwashingtonbureau.let's start with chris. chris, we're talking about two high-level government officials in a scandal, general allen sent to become the supreme ally commander for nato. first off, what's the latest on the investigation? you are hearing anything? what is going to happen to general allen? >> reporter: yeah, right now what i'm hearing is that general allen is here in washington wondering exactly the same thing. he was just 48 hours away from going before that senate confirmation hearing to take over nato. now that has been postponed. he is here and people are wondering what's going to happen to him next. from what we've been able to determine from sources at the pentagon, basically they are looking at between 20 and 30,000 pages, most of them e-mails sent between general allen and jill kelly down in florida between 2010 and 2012. so right up until this year. i'm told the e-mails were inappropriate in nature and now the inspector general here at the pentagon is looking through those to see what exactly

there could be charges brought against her, but we're told she hired an attorneyinwashington, andi reached out several times to him today. haven't heard back yet. >> what do we know about the fbi agent that sent kelly shirtless pictures of himself? >> a u.s. official confirms the agent in question did send shirtless photos of himself to kelly, which opens up a host of questions. they also said that happened before this case ever began. we already know this was the agent kelly took her original concerns to when she received the e-mails she felt were threatening. an official we spoke with said this agent never worked the case, but passed on the information to special agents in another department, the cyber unit. it was that department that took up the investigation that eventually led to the affair between broadwell and general petraeus. >> this agent also who has not been identified, suzanne, who allegedly went to this republican member of congress from washington state, dave reichert, he then went to house minority leader, majority leader eric cantor who went to justice department and fbi

e-mails? >> reporter: well, erin, general allen is said to be hereinwashington. infact, he flew here from afghanistan, because on thursday he was supposed to have that senate confirmation hearing to become the military head of nato, all of that now on hold. sources close to general allen have told our own nick paton walsh that allen says he did not have an affair with jill kelley, a pentagon official has also said directly that general allen denies any affair, any extra marital involvement with jill kelley. but look, erin. the reality here is, defense secretary leon panetta ordered up a full-blown inspector general investigation, and a lot of people around the pentagon say leon panetta wouldn't have done that unless there was something that needed to be looked into. >> and barbara, what's your understanding about general allen and if he's heading back to afghanistan, as we had heard he might be? >> reporter: well, he might, in fact, head back, we're told, in the next couple days to afghanistan, because frankly, there's nothing for him to do here in washington. he is still in com

access to two of the most powerful and respected meninwashington, former head of the cia. it was kelley who unintentionally exposed his affair and cost him his job as cia director. and then the messages she traded with general john allen, now the focus of his own investigation. tom fuentes is a cnn contributor and former assistant director of the fbi. welcome, tom. >> good morning, carol. >> so kelley san honorary consulate to south korea. now they may fire her if events warrant. this is just getting embarrassing. >> well, i don't know exactly what they're firing her from since that really is a pretty meaningless term in the first place. if she gets demoted from some position that almost means nothing, so what? >> it's hard to understand all of these terms. honorary consulate means she helps the south koreans set up appear parties and stuff? she introduces them to people in the united states? do you know what an honorary consulate is? >> not exactly. diplomatic status is invoked by the host country, like south korea saying this person would be working in your country and

washington, d.c.so, brianna, i guess you have this fiscal cliff, that the administration is dealing with, at the same time you have this unfolding scandal. how is the administration, or has the administration really been dragged into the scandal? >> it's certainly been a distraction. if you watched the white house press briefing yesterday you could see almost all of the questions revolved around this scandal involving generals petraeus and allen. so we know that. certainly. but, jay carney, the white house press secretary, was downplaying this was a distraction, saying the president is still very much focused on the fiscal cliff. we do know, however, that this situation has taken some of the president's time, a limited amount of time, carney said. but at the same time, we know that a lot of staff hours get dedicated to something like this kind of scandal. meantime, carney said that president obama still thinks very highly of general allen. he said that he thinks highly of the job that he's done in afghanistan, and of his service. here's what he said yesterday. the first time that carney

that kelley has been known to be onthewashingtonsocialcircuit. it's possible they had socialized here, but source say friends are describing her as feeling like she's an innocent victim in this and that a friend of petraeus' who spoke with him throughout the weekend and also today, erin, says that the general, the retired general has assisted to his friends that he only had one affair. only one other woman. >> the big question tonight, who knew what, and when did they know it about the petraeus affair? and does the timing of his resignation add up? here's what we can tell you tonight, in the early summer the fbi began an investigation. by the late summer, high level officials at the fbi and the justice department were notified. that investigators uncovered what appeared to be an affair between petraeus and broadwell. now, according to the "wall street journal," eric holder is among those who were informed. now, between october 21st and november 3rd, the fbi agented interviewed broadwell and petraeus. then on october 31st, eric cantor's office was notified. he passed on the concerns to

the truth, the facts. tonight the focus on what played outinwashingtontoday.two foes back at it again. senator mccain has maintained either white house negligence or a cover up. he would try to block any effort to promote ms. rice to secretary of state should hillary clinton resign. >> if senator mccain and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me. and i'm happy to have that discussion with them. but for them to go after the un ambassador, who had nothing to do with agabenghazi and was mak a presentation based on intelligence that she had received and to go after her reputation is outrageous. >> senator mccain heard that remark and took to the floor of the sen sat to respond. mr. president, four brave americans died. it has now been eight weeks and the american people have received nothing but contradick tri statements from all levels of our government. this administration has either been guilty of incompetence or engaged in a cover up neither of which is acceptable to the american people. >> there are still serious unanswered questions about the timeline of events. r

this morning. she's inourwashington, d.c.bureau. good morning, jill. >> hello, soledad. well, this is it. both sides are going to be there. they're looking at the tone. they're looking at the president, what kind of tone will he set? you have to say that they're coming in both sides with their essential positions intact. all, both sides are saying that there is some room for a compromise. so, the essential thing is how do you compromise? if you look at the positions, let's say, of the republicans, and it's most strongly, as i say, relayed by senator mitch mcconnell, he does not, and they do not, want any tax increases. so let's listen to him first. >> and let's be clear, an opening bid of $1.6 trillion of new taxes just isn't serious. it's more than simpson-bowles or any other bipartisan commission has called for. it's been unanimously rejected in the house and senate, it's twice as much as the white house seemed ready to agree to during last summer's debt ceiling talks and look at it in the context of the spending cuts that are yet to be enacted from the president's other proposal, it a

-knownamongwashingtonsocialcircles. they have been friends with general patreaus and his family for five years. friends describe kelley as an innocent victim about e-mails accuse kelley of flirting with patreaus. how does this impact the careers of the two generals but also implications as well in defense secretary leon panetta has asked that general john allen's nomination to be supreme commander put on hold. for patreaus, panetta asked whether any kags that his affair started when he was still in active duty. >> we obviously are going to watch this closely to determine just exactly you know when that took place. but i think right now my view is, let's see what the investigation turns up and what the congress, these committees are able to determine as to what exactly took place. >> so a friend of general patreaus says the affair starts two months after he took over as cia director and ended about four months ago. four days after the patreaus scandal broke, investigators are trying gather information. what we saw agents searching paula broadwell's home in charlotte, north carolina, the w

't be ratcheted back anytime soon. >> where is he now? do you know? >> we're told he's hereinwashingtonandhe had come here from afghanistan, for those confirmation hearings on thursday. it is now expected he will return to kabul, the president continues to express confidence in him as the commander of the war in afghanistan. but make no mistake, there are hearings under way for his replacement in afghanistan. another marine corps general. as soon as that general is confirmed, it is expected he will then deploy to kabul, he will take command of the war, and then we'll really see what happens with general allen. it is becoming a very sensitive, i think would be the word, question around here, is this man's career over or can he still pass the senate confirmation hearing? >> all right, barbara starr at the pentagon. thank you, barbara. >>> in regards to the petraeus part of this story, fbi agents did search the home of paula broadwell last night, nearly a dozen agents seen here carrying boxes out of her north carolina home. they were also seen taking photos inside her home, not sure exactly wha

,washingtonisnone too happy about being left out of the loop as the fbi investigates the general petraeus sex scandal. >> it's rather shocking to find out candidly that we weren't briefed. >> it would have been nice to know before we saw it on tv. >> the president was certainly surprised when he was informed about the situation regarding general petraeus on thursday. >> meanwhile, the top general in afghanistan allegedly caught red-handed exchanging flirtatious e-mails of his own with jill kelley. plus the debut of my new cnn colleague, the culinary superstar who will dine on anything, anthony bourdain is here. joining me is barbara starr and intelligence correspondent, suzanne kelly. welcome back to you both. every night i say right off the top, can any of us get our heads round this and how much more ridiculous can it get, and lo and behold, it gets more ridiculous. barbara starr, let's try and get to what we believe to be the facts behind all the kind of lurid, titillating headlines. a second general today, petraeus' successor in afghanistan, general john allen, a marine corps four sta

time, thanks. let's turntowashingtonnow,where of course there was a confirmation hearing fortunate general allen's spending nomination to command the u.s. european command and nato forces in europe. it's all going to be delayed because of this scandal. white house of course, brianna keilar has been following developments on that front. good morning. >> good morning to you, soledad. i'll tell you, we just got reaction in from the white house. the first since this new development involving general allen. this reiterating what we heard overnight in a written statement from defense secretary leon panetta. this is from the spokesman for the nsc, the national security council says at the request of the secretary of defense the president has put on hold his nomination of general allen as supreme allied commander europe. that's the top u.s. commander in europe, the head of nato forces in europe. this is spending the investigation of general allen's conduct by the department of defense inspector general. says the president remains focused on fully supporting our extraordinary troops and coa

mefromwashington. thankyou for joining me. >> my pleasure, gary. good to be with you. >> you heard what israeli spokesman had to say there. what's your reaction to what he had to say? >> it's very, very cynical. gaza is the most densely populated area in the world and you have already placed it under siege for years now. the control is very big military control, crossing points, borders, territorial borders and they shoot and bomb and shell at will. and of course the victims are largely if not entirely civilians. men, women, children. over 205 children have been injured, and these are 35 of them babies. out of the 42 killed, mainly women and children. and there are no military people killed after the targeted assassinations. so enough with the spin and trying to present themselves as angels protecting the civilians. the israeli military is using gaza as target practice. they have been shooting, firing at will, and they want the palestinians of gaza to lie down and die quietly. this is absolutely incredible. it's cruel. it's a human tragedy, and israel has to be held accountable. ga

that in just a minute. >>> we want to bring you in live nowtowashington. yousee peter king there, the republican. he just exited a hearing that david petraeus was testifying in. of course, surrounding what happened in benghazi, libya. let's listen to congressman king. >> the original talking points prepared by the cia were different from the ones that were finally put out. as far as general petraeus, his testimony today was that from the start he had told us that this was a terrorist attack, terrorists involved from the start. my questions had a very different recollection of that, clear impression we were given is that the overwhelming amount of evidence is that it was -- rose out of a spontaneous demonstration and it was not a terrorist attack and pointed out the following week when matt olson said it was a terrorist attack and it made headlines because before then, the administration was saying it was not terrorists. it was very cordial, as you will. we all thanked him for his service. i think he has a different impression of the impressions he left on september 14th. >> mr. c

inwashington, itcertainly won't be the last. but tonight there are growing questions about the timing of how the word got out, whether more people in the government should have been told or been told sooner that the fbi was investigating a case involving the director of the cia. we're keeping them honest as we do every night not to take sides, you can get that on other cable news channels, but to look for the truth, the facts. here's what we know right now about who knew what and when. according to "wall street journal" the fbi discovered the affair between petraeus and his biographer, paula broadwell, in late summer. we'll have more on how in just a moment. so the fbi reportedly knew in late summer that the head of the cia was having an affair, but it wasn't until months later after election day that president obama found out, and the house and senate intelligence committees didn't find out until friday. congressional leaders from both parties are angry, they say they should have been notified sooner that there were potential national security issues. senate intelligence committee chair dia

can with reporters in israel and gaza,inwashington. alsowith the major players in egypt and turkey. let's check in now with our middle east desk that's covering everything happening in this conflict between israel and gaza. nick valencia is down at the desk. nick, what's developing now? >> good morning, victor. we're at the international desk. you see the reporters behind me, getting latest information. we've got the newest video. we're learning that a french minister is expected to meet with them today. we also understand he might meet with the former palestinian president mahmoud abbas. this comes on the heels of comments made by benjamin netanyahu who is, of course, the prime minister of israel. they're prepared to widen the scope to stop rocket attacks. hundreds of rocket attacks have made their way into the territory killing at least three people so far, victor. the casualties aren't just mounting in israel but where 50 people have died in the last few days. this conflict, victor, we've been following it since it's erupted. that's the latest from the international desk. we'll

. >> and from what i understand from your reporting earlier, chris, he'd already traveledtowashingtonforthis hearing, right? >> alina, it was supposed to begin in 48 hours on thursday morning. he was going up to the hills. so this really blind sided a lot of people coming so quickly. >> and all the while this -- while this is an internal pentagon investigation, this other fbi investigation in to petraeus and paula broadwell continues. and last night, a pretty significant development seemingly as you know, chris, the fbi conducted a search of paula broadwell's home in north carolina. they were there for about four hours, carted out about six boxes, including her computer, a hard drive. you see them there last night, and didn't leave until about 1:00 in the morning. i guess my question is this, if this was simply an extramarital affair and nothing more, what in the world was the fbi doing there last night? >> well, we are told by a u.s. official that the fbi did go to paula broadwell's home to specifically look for any classified information, but it was more along the lines of trying

-mails purchase reportedly send by broadwell to kelley, a petraeus family friend. tonight, the "washington post" has reported that as president obama rearranges his national security team, it is considering asking senator john kerry to serve on the team and the fbi agent was barred from taking part in the case for allegedly sending shirtless pictures of himself to a woman involved in the case. meanwhile, the ghost writer of broadwell's book, vernon loeb, says he was clueless about the affair between petraeus and broadwell. here with the latest on the scandal that keeps getting bigger and more bizarre, cnn's pentagon correspondent barbara starr and intelligence correspondent, suzanne kelly. welcome back to you both. >> thank you. >> when we talked on friday night, it was all just breaking and it seemed a relatively straightforward scandal but none of us thought it would stay that way, and sure enough, tonight, a really bizarre twist. it's not john kerry possibly becoming defense secretary, nothing bizarre about that at all. what is bizarre is this revelation in the "wall street journal" and it's

washingtongridlock.no, it's worse -- look, our taxes are about to go up. not the taxes on our dividends though, right? that's a big part of our retirement. oh, no, it's dividends, too. the rate on our dividends would more than double. but we depend on our dividends to help pay our bills. we worked hard to save. well, the president and congress have got to work together to stop this dividend tax hike. before it's too late. >>> raining rockets and fears of a broader middle east war, bombs flying over gaza early this morning. just take a look at these images. israel is saying that it's gone after 160 so-called terror sites. this just one day after israel killed the leader of hamas's military winging in gaza. today at least 13 other people in gaza were also killed. israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu says the attack is in response for some 200 rocks that have been landing in israel over the past 24 hours alone. 200. and at least three israelis who died as a result. the palestinians who have been seen here trying to put out fires inspect their damage and rush people to get medical atte

inthiswashingtondrama?>> i don't think so. i think benghazi is such a serious scandal and debacle in terms of american foreign policy that everyone wants to get to the answer, including senator dianne feinstein, the democrat from california. as far as those talking points go, it is not at all clear where they were edited. what we do know apparently is that the original determination that al qaeda was involved, or al qaeda affiliated groups was sent out the front door to the cia and went through some sort of editing process, perhaps interagency, perhaps at the white house that still hasn't been answered. what we do know is if the white house wanted to provide the answers, they could have done it before the election and chose not to. let's not forget, of course, general petraeus and his whole personal scandal, debacle, that could also be professional. we still don't know the answers to that. the administration knew of the petraeus investigation. the president claims that he didn't before the election, now we're only learning of it after. >> let's talk a little bit more about susan rice and t

inwashingtonhavetrip tripped up on false intelligence in the past. people like condoleeza rice. who as national security adviser back in 2003, made the case for war in iraq, insisting that saddam hussein had weapons of mass destruction. >> it is time to stop the deceit and time to stop trying to deceive the world, and to offer up his weapons of mass destruction so that he can be disarmed. the overwhelming bulk of the evidence there, not about a data point here or a data point there, but about what saddam hussein was doing, was that he had weapons of mass destruction. >> right up to the end, saddam hussein continued to harbor ambitions to threaten the world with weapons of mass destruction and to hide illegal weapons activities. >> now, no nuclear weapons, no wmd ever turned up in iraq, of course. condoleezza rice went on to become secretary of state in the bush administration and back then, senator mccain and other republicans had no problem supporting her, in spite of the fact she fell for bad intelligence. >> condoleezza rice is a great american success story. this is what america

numbers in a budget. well, we worked hard for those benefits. we earned them. andifwashingtontriesto cram decisions about the future... of these programs into a last minute budget deal... we'll all pay the price. aarp is fighting to protect seniors with responsible... solutions that strengthen medicare and... social security for generations to come. we can do better than a last minute deal... that would hurt all of us. >>> lisa sylvester's monitoring some of the other top stories in "the situation room" right now. lisa, anti-austerity strikes hitting parts of europe. what's going on? >> that's right, wolf. violent protests over spending cuts meant to bail governments out of debt are sweeping the european landscape. angry workers took to the streets in spain where a general strike has shut down airports, factories and schools. austerity measures have caused walkouts in portugal, france, italy, belgium and greece. and the closing bell punctuated a rough day on wall street. concerns piling up over a fiscal cliff and turmoil in the middle east forced u.s. stocks to drop more than 1%.

't set a deadline, nothing happens. the defaultinwashingtonisinaction and inertia. >> mr. obama interviewed by meredith vieira and since then she has stopped being a correspondent, and now -- you were furious when you came out here, because you don't want to kill your dog? >> no. >> and so the potential dog kill ser your husband? >> y. >> you are the dog lover? >> yes, i want p.e.t.a. to be very clear on this. it an extraordinary story, but the president has just been re-elected and very brilliantly in the end, and then immediately involved in the lurid tale of generals and sex and whatever else? what do you make of it? >> i think that biggest mistake that was made was starting the investigation to begin with. >> i totally agree with that. >> and i believe it is unnecessary and trampling on people's rights and privacy rights. >> well, in the end, you have two women competing for the after f affections and one who is having the affair and one who isn't, and one that is flirtatious that we know by the way she behaved with other generals? >> do we know is the way she was around oth

security denied and the august 15th cable backtowashingtonwherechris stevens is telling secretary clinton, we've identified ten al-qaeda militia groups in benghazi. two of the ten we suspect were involved in the attack and close to the final paragraph, if there is a coordinated attack against the consulate, we cannot defend it. so four americans are dead. first ambassador is killed. i think this is a symptom of a greater problem in the mideast, quite frankly. for those reasons, it's important that the congress pick a process that is rational, logical and will get to the truth the best we're able to discern what the truth is. conspiracy theorys are running rampant. how many of you are getting calls about have you heard that? have you heard that? a segmented stove pipe investigation where you have three different committees going off in three different direction, not comparing notes and doing this in an organized fashion is dpoik going to lead to failure, it's not going to result in the quality product we need to dispel unfounded conspiracy theorys, accusations and will not lead to

numbers thinkin a budget.d... well, we worked hard for those benefits. we earned them. andifwashingtontriesto cram decisions about the future... of these programs into a last minute budget deal... we'll all pay the price. aarp is fighting to protect seniors with responsible... solutions that strengthen medicare and... social security for generations to come. we can do better than a last minute deal... that would hurt all of us. swithout shriners hospitals,he things i'm able to do. my life would be completely different. when i was seven, we found out i had scoliosis. everything changed when they stepped in. it was like they gave me my future back. tori's life is one of nearly a million changed by donations from people like you. send your love to the rescue. donate today. >>> a major court decision comes down on affirmative action. lisa sylvester's monitoring that, some other top stories in "the situation room" right now. what's the latest, lisa? >> wolf, the state ban on affirmative action in college admissions has been declared unconstitutional. students voted to approve a ballot ini

Search Results 0 to 43 of about 44 (some duplicates have been removed)